PSO Questions & Answers

Sylverant is a homebrew open source server for Phantasy Star Online. Dreamcast users still play PSO online with this server even today! This is the official forum for both the online game server as well as the open source project itself. Feel free to post and get a gathering started online! We can also show you how to get connected!

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Idiot for Life
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Idiot for Life »

I'll make sure not to use any other cheats. Glad I got Mod permission before I did anything. Thanks!
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by K_I_R_E_E_K »

Well technically it's allowed because it can't be detected and at the same time as you read it can't be used. There is also the information that you simply need to specify it to the other team members and if they accept then there isn't any worries, either that or lock the game.

What should you do? Well, this information came from 1 person and that person said so far 3 different things, so being it hard to comply with anything that was said, simply play normally without codebreaker codes and you should be fine.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

K_I_R_E_E_K wrote:Well technically it's allowed because it can't be detected and at the same time as you read it can't be used. There is also the information that you simply need to specify it to the other team members and if they accept then there isn't any worries, either that or lock the game.

What should you do? Well, this information came from 1 person and that person said so far 3 different things, so being it hard to comply with anything that was said, simply play normally without codebreaker codes and you should be fine.
I'm not sure how I've said three different things on the subject. I said that technically, within the framework of the rules, it is not allowed. That is quite clear. However, as I don't see it as altering the real dynamic of the game, I don't particularly care about it being used (the idea of detecting it or not is completely irrelevant, but I do believe that it is indeed possible to detect them through various means).

That said, as was stated there, you should (in the spirit of full disclosure) let the people you are playing with know that you have such a thing enabled. I had meant to say that in my previous post, but I appear to have left it out. For that, I apologize. Or, of course, you should just go through the game one time offline for each difficulty, because once you're at a high enough level, it shouldn't take more than an hour or so to do that. :wink:
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by K_I_R_E_E_K »

You said that certain things were allowed because they couldn't be detected, if they can't be detected, you can't judge that person gameplay no matter how non original it may be. The problem was the narrow view that included only 1 single thing while neglecting all the other mods/patches, some of which are of the same nature as the one allowed, but since that was neglected the easy way out was the one chosen, we allow 1 thing, we neglect the rest, no questions asked about what they are.
You used a "condition" or a "rule" to accept a mod (this was the explanation given when some players complained), ignoring the fact that the rule included far many other mods, so instead, you allowed 1 and you disallowed everything else.
Some players considered it "biased"

Then, things that fall outside the legit checker (this is the case) must be mentioned to the other players, but there was no specification if it was allowed or not, you said it as a recommendation, a way to approach other players.
I agree, you shouldn't just enter a game and ruin it, it may be allowed but acting like an idiot isn't ideal either.

Then now you state it's not allowed.

1
2
3

You asked.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Idiot for Life »

I am getting mixed messages. All I want to do is play the game online with a friend, and not have to go through the levels alone and offline. I did that for 6 hours and I am either bad at the game (which could very well be the case) or the game was meant for a co-op experience because after 6 hours I made it to Cave 1 and I am at level 6. I believe a game should be challenging, but 6 hours to beat the first level is overkill.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

What mods (beyond graphical ones) have I ever claimed were not detectable? I certainly don't remember making any such claims on the matter. Graphical mods are allowed because they don't change the gameplay mechanic at all, and there's no reason to ban them.

If you're referring to Ives' EP (that's what I think you're going at here, since you mention the legit checker and it is the only "mod" that I've heard anyone complain about being allowed), it is detectable when someone is actively using it. Perhaps not in the normal means, but it is entirely possible to detect it by looking at how battles progress (things such as how much damage is done and how much it takes to kill an enemy). These are all types of things that the server already processes the packets for in some way (at least in some instances), so it really wouldn't take that much effort to add a check if I REALLY wanted to (which, I, quite obviously, do not care to do).

Now, it is not possible to detect if someone uses it, stops using it, and goes online later (I'm guessing this is REALLY what you are getting at?). That is a different story all together, and guess what, that applies to pretty much any cheats. I can't detect if you use the bankmod while in offline mode or on another server, no matter how much someone might want me to. I can't detect if you've changed the battle parameter or map files to make enemies give you 500x experience when you're offline if you change them back before going online. These types of things are specifically not allowed, but guess what, I'm sure a LOT of people use the bank mod at least and there's no way for me to stop them from doing so, short of banning people from playing offline (I can save/compare character data to enforce that, of course) and implementing all kinds of checks that would be completely stupid to do. Unlike some people, I trust most of the server's users implicitly to do the right thing, and based on the small number of complaints I have ever received about players, I feel that this implicit trust idea is holding up just fine.

I specifically allow the EP because it was requested to be allowed (yes, by Ives himself). I see no harm in allowing people to put in requests along those lines. Some people like to enhance the game in order to keep things fresh, some people don't. I don't really care, to be honest -- play the way you want to. That said, no other such mods have ever been requested for permission, but as long as they don't completely break the game for everyone (things like 500x experience mods would fit in that box of game breaking mods), I wouldn't necessarily see any reason to deny any such requests that are put in. It'd be up to the individual ships within Sylverant to decide what is and is not allowed (remember, we have a per-ship allowed mods list for this reason entirely). If any ship specifically cared to ban the EP, they'd be perfectly allowed to do so (and the ship's staff obviously would be expected to police said decision on their own).

I still don't see "three different" statements on the matter involved in this topic. No matter how you explain it, there's not "three different" things I have said. That said, I feel this is derailing the conversation WAY more than it needs to be. If you'd like to continue this conversation, please continue it either in PMs or another topic -- it does not belong here.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

Idiot for Life wrote:I am getting mixed messages. All I want to do is play the game online with a friend, and not have to go through the levels alone and offline. I did that for 6 hours and I am either bad at the game (which could very well be the case) or the game was meant for a co-op experience because after 6 hours I made it to Cave 1 and I am at level 6. I believe a game should be challenging, but 6 hours to beat the first level is overkill.
If you want to play the game online with a friend, I don't really care if you use a mod to unlock all the levels while you do so (but, keep in mind, you're going to get your butt handed to you in the ruins at level 6). Now, I can only speak for the Iselia ship here (as that's the only one I run).

I'd suggest putting a password on your team to prevent anyone else from joining that might take offense to the use of any cheats. If you do not, then make sure to tell anyone that joins your team that you are using a cheat to unlock all the levels online, that way, if they have a problem with it, they can leave. Full disclosure helps defuse arguments before they become arguments. :wink:

You do have options other than using cheats though to help you level up (that will be a lot more effective). Play online with others when there are a bunch of people online (Fridays and Saturdays you'll generally see more people around), and try to find someone at a higher level to help you level up. Most people who play here will be more than happy to help out new players to level up and such, and if you work together, I'm sure you'll level up a lot quicker. PSO is more fun when you have a fuller party. :grin:

Also, remember, the unlocked stages are controlled by whatever player creates a team. If your friend has completed the levels, have him or her create the team, and you'll be able to play them too. :wink:

You can ignore the back-and-forth between K_I_R_E_E_K and I. This is obviously not the first time we've discussed any sort of mods, and it most probably won't be the last either. That's why I said in my last reply that this really isn't the place for that kind of discussion. :wink:
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

It is also not necessary to unlock the different areas at all if you don't want to. You can simply go to the counter in the Hunter's Guild and select to play a quest in the area of your choosing. You don't need to unlock anything to be able to do that, and quests have more enemies, and thus yield more experience, than the free maps do, anyway.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by K_I_R_E_E_K »

Idiot for Life wrote:I am getting mixed messages. All I want to do is play the game online with a friend, and not have to go through the levels alone and offline. I did that for 6 hours and I am either bad at the game (which could very well be the case) or the game was meant for a co-op experience because after 6 hours I made it to Cave 1 and I am at level 6. I believe a game should be challenging, but 6 hours to beat the first level is overkill.
Unlocking other areas will have it's downsides, having a low level and start doing ruins and it will take a long time for you to beat it, especially online since enemies are even stronger.
A way to play these areas is to simply join someone who has them unlocked, but you won't deal much damage and you're always in the situation of imminent death.

Offline and with a decent gameplay you can beat forest and the dragon in just a couple of minutes without even restarting the game to try again, but i understand that for a 1st try it might take a while, but with lvl 6 you're better prepared for caves and trust me, caves is a lot longer than forest.
You can give it a try, but expect high difficulty.
What mods (beyond graphical ones) have I ever claimed were not detectable? I certainly don't remember making any such claims on the matter. Graphical mods are allowed because they don't change the gameplay mechanic at all, and there's no reason to ban them.
You're a sneaky one, you change the subject with an amazing attitude, when i mention mods of the same nature i'm mentioning stuff that changes enemy stats, char stats, drop rates, weapon stats,.... that are not on the EP mod.
You can't possibly detect altered shops, easy drops (as in the rare drop has a really high chance of droping), warping, walk trough walls, 1 hit kill,.....
Remember you said that the mod was allowed because certain things couldn't be detected, so if by any means someone was using it but the person got in, then that person was allowed to enter.
Sadly, many things can't be detected so following the things you said, if the player gets in then he is allowed.

But wait, recently it ain't allowed. It may not be detected, but that's unimportant right?

The only time you mentioned that it was required to state to the other players was just now and i remember a PM (aka non public statement) with also something of the sort.
"i meant to say it in my previous post", but you didn't
"i meant it to say it on the rules", but you didn't

In anycase i am past that, you like to play as if you have amnesia and that is tiresome, i know you guys sometimes become ubber deffensive to an obvious mistake, i just ask for it not to happen again.

It always turns into this
Someone: Is ep detected?
Bluecrab: Sometimes, if not then it's ok
Someone: what about this mod?
Bluecrab: it's not ok
Someone: why?
Bluecrab: because it's not on the list of allowed things
Someone: then why is EP in there
Bluecrab: because it can't be detected.

:S

Yes some things are detected, that's not the question, the question is when it doesn't detect it.
I specifically allow the EP because it was requested to be allowed
Sadly that wasn't the reply given to other players that complained, and due to that the reply was called "biased" in the end.
While you may be right that the decision didn't came from an arbitrary rule that allowed it, but from a request, you certainly didn't say it before, ppl can't guess.

I'm not going to reply to this subject anymore, so don't worry, the more i ask the more divergent replies seem to pop up, if 2 things are already bad, dealing with 3 or 4 isn't exactly my goal.
So whatever are your reasons.....whatever man, do as you want.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

K_I_R_E_E_K wrote:You're a sneaky one, you change the subject with an amazing attitude, when i mention mods of the same nature i'm mentioning stuff that changes enemy stats, char stats, drop rates, weapon stats,.... that are not on the EP mod.
You can't possibly detect altered shops, easy drops (as in the rare drop has a really high chance of droping), warping, walk trough walls, 1 hit kill,.....
All of those things can be detected to some extent. Would detection be perfect on some of them? No, but some very easily could be made perfect (walking through walls could easily be detected once used -- I already monitor player positions and read map data, after all). Does the code of the server detect these things now? No, it doesn't. Why? Because, as I said already, I implicitly trust the users to do the right thing. To be honest, as long as nobody's bothering anyone else, I don't really care what people are doing on the server, cheats-wise. The rules are there because some people were causing quite a stir around the time when they were introduced, and it wasn't the people who were using cheats -- it was the people accusing others of using cheats (many of which were not using any cheats, by the way) for god knows what reason. :roll:
Remember you said that the mod was allowed because certain things couldn't be detected, so if by any means someone was using it but the person got in, then that person was allowed to enter.
Sadly, many things can't be detected so following the things you said, if the player gets in then he is allowed.

But wait, recently it ain't allowed. It may not be detected, but that's unimportant right?
I don't have any idea what you're suggesting here. The EP is detectable by paying careful attention to the way battles go about happening. Is it detectable by the code of the server as it stands now? No, but that's because I don't feel the need to spend a large portion of my time writing code to do it. It's not worth the frustration to do so, nor do I feel any reason to ever do it. Is that "undetectable"? Perhaps it is out of laziness, but that doesn't actually make it undetectable. It just means I don't feel like doing it. Someone else who's knowledgeable with things could probably make it happen if they wanted to, and that's the beauty of Sylverant being open-source.

I'm not going to bother replying to the rest of the post, since it seems like you're just reiterating the same points that I have already refuted.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Treamcaster »

-Bug report-

Ship tested: Altimira
Quest: Endless Nightmare 4
Server commands used: /sdrops

Issue: /sdrops command gives no badges as reward for quest completion.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Treamcaster »

GDemu and PSO Patcher compatibility?
Today I tried running PSO Patcher on PSO NTE and I got the following error:
Inserted disc is unknown...
If it its PSO, please report the CRCs below along with the version of PSO in use.
IP.BIN CRC: 0xD281A0CC
1ST_READ.BIN CRC = 0xE5A7F3A1
Still I was able to run game anyways.

Other problem regarding NTE:
Since I reset DC flash in the other day I haven't been able to log in with NTE.

Issue:
I load char from Vmu, select online mode, the following shows up:
https://www.dropbox.com/sc/783viqvwue5e ... Pzu26Nymxa
I don't understand what it's asking so I enter Serial Number. It accepts and then after loading it freezes.
Next try I put Access key, it accepts and same freeze happens.
Finally I realize it accepts anything I put and always freezes.
It should appear two boxes for serial and access keys, don't know why only one shows up.

Next issue:
I try NTE on my other JP Dc.
No snak screen shows up, just this:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqf67loiruxtr ... 9.jpg?dl=0
I tried to use different vmus, used xdp to setup internet settings, bba browser disc, flash reset... nothing seems to change.

Got this working.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

Not sure about the freeze there... If you're using the gdemu for it, it could be an incompatibility between the game and the gdemu though.

As for using the patcher with the gdemu, it isn't supported. I don't own one and have no way to test it, so it'll likely stay unsupported (that, and I personally don't have any interest in supporting the gdemu for various other reasons). Sorry.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

The loader is meant to patch discs, so I doubt BlueCrab is going to worry about whether it's compatible with GDEMU, especially since he doesn't have one to test the compatibility himself.

As for the badges, I wonder if they got blocked as rares. :lol:

*edit*

Lobster ninja'd! 8-)
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Treamcaster »

I created new char and got the two snak screens to show up finally.
The problem for not showing two snak screens was because of the old char (Nishi NTE) I had created a while ago... some weird snak mess up it seems!

Still freezes after loading. I see two possibilities here:
GDEmu doesn't support the NTE or I dumped the disc wrong, could this be a cause?

Edit: Everytime I want to play I must enter Serial Number. Is it normal to happen in NTE?
Edit2: I tried booting NTE without Sylverant Patcher. GOT FREEZE screen too. So it seems NTE freezes without patcher?
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Treamcaster »

^Edits

Conclusions: I believe NTE is supported by GDEmu. I get freeze screens with original GD if I don't use Sylverants patcher.
So the thing is.. in order to use NTE with GDEmu, the pso patcher needs to work with it first, if it doesn't the game won't work as well.

Edit:
Aleron Ives wrote:
As for the badges, I wonder if they got blocked as rares. :lol:
Sounds like it.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by BlueCrab »

Aleron Ives wrote:As for the badges, I wonder if they got blocked as rares. :lol:
Doesn't look like it. I don't see anything in Altimira's log about rates being blocked. There are only two weird things in the log: an apparently corrupted packet that booted someone from the server and it complaining about a few maps for quests not being cached. Dunno why either would cause missing quest rewards.

The patcher only patches the address that the game connects to with the NTE -- it won't fix any sort of freezes (unless the game freezes trying to ping the server at that point). That's probably unlikely, but not completely out of the realm of craziness that I've seen from Sega with regard to PSO.
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Treamcaster »

BlueCrab wrote: (unless the game freezes trying to ping the server at that point).
I think this is what's happening, I can't find any other reason. It freezes in the moment it tries to connect, with or without gdmenu.
Have you ever successfully conneceted the NTE without using your patcher?
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Aleron Ives »

Of course it freezes when you try to connect without patching the server address: it's trying to connect to a server that doesn't exist anymore. The only ways to use the NTE without the loader are either to use a CB code to patch the server address or hope that you can specify DNS 1 as the IP address of sylverant.net to redirect the connection. Some dial-up ISPs allow that, while others require you to use sanctioned DNS servers.

As for the boxes, another possibility is that they were empty from the solo fixed box bug. I suppose I can do a few runs to test whether they're always empty or sometimes drop badges. Which quests did the server complain weren't cached? The badges certainly won't drop from the boxes if the map data is missing...
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Re: PSO Questions & Answers

Post by Treamcaster »

Aleron Ives wrote:hope that you can specify DNS 1 as the IP address of sylverant.net to redirect the connection.
I did this in xdp browser settings, I set primary DNS to 67.222.144.120.
Aleron Ives wrote:As for the boxes, another possibility is that they were empty from the solo fixed box bug. I suppose I can do a few runs to test whether they're always empty or sometimes drop badges. Which quests did the server complain weren't cached? The badges certainly won't drop from the boxes if the map data is missing...
I did 2 runs with /sdrops on and it never dropped any badges. Did 2 runs without /sdrops and the badges dropped as usual.
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